They weren't alone.

Gabriel opened his eyes and had a millisecond to react to the gun barrel pointed between his eyes.

His hand shot out to grab the barrel and shoved it out of his face while he kicked a leg toward where he could barely see his assailant's figure in the dark, pulling his other hand out from under his pillow to reveal his own weapon. His leg made contact with a dull thud; however, someone grabbed it and, the next thing he knew, he was flipped over onto his stomach, his gun was swiped from his hand, and both his arms were pulled back as a heavy weight pushed against his back.

"You're an idiot, Hawk."

Gabriel grunted. "Takes one to know one, Kid."

Someone flicked the lights on and Gabriel winced.

"Fancy seein' you here," a familiar voice joined, heavy with a Texan accent, and Gabriel barely stopped himself from groaning. Out of all the people Leon could've sent from the team, he just had to send Kid and Cowboy. His LT must be really pissed at him.

"Were you really planning on lone-wolfing this whole mess you're in?" Kid asked, tone as carefree as always. "I'm hurt, Hawk. Very hurt. Right in the old tick-"

"No one move! Or I will put a bullet right through you."

Gabriel stopped struggling, and Kid froze above him. Gabriel strained to see over his shoulder and found Cowboy standing perfectly still in the master bedroom's doorway. Behind Cowboy's bulk, he could barely make out Moira, sleep-rumpled but holding a revolver to his fellow SEAL's back, far enough that Cowboy couldn't reach her if he tried to pull anything.

Smart woman.

Cowboy looked mildly irritated to have been caught off guard and Gabriel wanted to chuckle.

"Miss? We're not here to hurt you," Cowboy began to say but stopped short when Moira cut him off.

"Are you okay, Gabriel?"

"I'm fine," he replied, bucking against Kid's hold. "They're friendlies, Moira."

Kid slowly released him and sat back on the bed as Gabriel rolled to his feet. He met Moira's gaze. Her eyes were terrified but hard as steel but she nodded before lowering the gun. "Okay."

Cowboy's shoulders dropped as he sighed and Kid fell onto his back on the bed to sprawl out. "Well, that wasn't embarrassing at all. A civilian got the jump on us. Let's not tell LT about that."

Gabriel ignored him and made his way over to Moira who handed the gun over to Cowboy when he held a hand out for it. "Sorry about that," she apologized on a shaky exhale, "it's been a wild couple of days."

Cowboy gave her a crooked smile. "That's understandable. Sorry for scarin' you."

Gabriel crossed his arms and glared at the other man. "You guys couldn't have come in normally? And what did you do to the alarm?"

"Kid wanted to prove a point," Cowboy jerked a thumb over his shoulder at their teammate still lounging on the bed. Kid waved at them. "And I hacked it to prove a point to Kid."

Gabriel brought a hand up to squeeze at the bridge of his nose, eyes screwing shut. "Why am I thinking that you two harassed our lieutenant into coming?"

"Aw, don't say that Hawk," Kid cooed, crossing his legs as he sat up and started bouncing on the bed like an actual kid. "We missed you these past six months that you've spent smooching with the CIA. And your cooking. Mostly your cooking."

Cowboy's mouth twisted into a shit-eating grin. "We were handpicked."

Yep, Leon was pissed.

"And," Cowboy added, "he wants to talk to you at oh-eight hundred."

Gabriel wondered if he could defenestrate himself out of the kitchen window. He really didn't want to pull his team into his mess, but now that they were...he was also relieved.

His gaze dipped to the revolver when Cowboy checked the rounds in it and frowned at Moira. "Where'd you find the gun?"

She pointed up to her room. "It was in the bedside drawer upstairs."

Kid snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah, I put that there last time I was here. Figured it could do us some good to have guns hidden around the house."

"Why are you guys here?" Moira asked, gaze flickering between the newcomers.

"We're your backup 'til we could clear Gabriel's good name and when the cavalry can finally get involved," Cowboy answered, soft spoken in the way he always was with civilians. Out of the three of them, he was starting to appear the least threatening, even in his black-on-black tac-gear. "You're in good hands, Miss Delaney."

Moira's eyes narrowed. "How do you know my name?"

"We did our research."

"Oh," Moira nodded, face twisting into unease.

Kid snickered as he hopped off the bed and trudged over to join them. "By that, Cowboy means he went through every digital record of you on government servers then hacked into any social media pages you have."

If Cowboy's glare had the ability to set anything on fire, Gabriel was sure Kid's whole head would burst into flames, blond hair and all.

Moira looked very disturbed. "Oh...well, then, uh...if everything's fine, I'll just, um, I'm gonna go back to bed now."

Gabriel followed after her as she practically bolted from their presence, smirking when he heard the sound of Cowboy's fist hitting Kid's stomach and Kid letting out a pained chuckle. Moira spun on her heel to face him when they rounded the corner.

"What are you doing?" she asked, breathless, eyes wide and cheeks a bit pink in the faint light that spilled from the bedroom.

"Making sure you get back to your room fine," he replied.

"It's literally right there."

Gabriel glanced at the spiral staircase and nodded. "I know. Still want to though."

He doesn't add that he could see her hands were still shaking.

She visibly swallowed before clearing her throat. "Whatever floats your boat, I guess."

He smiled. "Thank you."

She whirled back around, dark hair flying with the movement, and continued to make her way to the stairs, though at a more sedate pace. Gabriel stuffed his hands into the pockets of his sweats and leisurely followed. She was wearing one of Kid's shirts that she found in the dresser upstairs, but her legs were clad in the pair of plaid pajama bottoms he bought for her. Gabriel couldn't stop the small smile from curving at his lips.

Then he frowned at himself.

He shouldn't be thinking of Moira like that in any capacity. Just like he shouldn't have kissed her on the balcony. Sure, it wasn't any type of lip-locking, but Gabriel knew that sometimes the smallest things have the biggest impact, and Moira, emotionally vulnerable and in a very unfamiliar environment, didn't need Gabriel to be making any sort of moves on her.

No matter how attractive he found her.

"Gabriel?"

He blinked. They've reached her room.

"Is everything alright?" she asked, peering at him with concern. Her hands were steadier, but he could still spy a slight tremor in them.

Resisting the urge to take her hands into his and hold them until she calmed down, he tried to paste a placating smile on his face. "Yeah. Sorry you got spooked. Those two are idiots."

She chuckled wryly as she wrapped her arms over her stomach. "Spooked and worried. Can we try to avoid that in the future? I took some gun lessons but I still only like them at a distance."

"Yeah. Leave the guns to me." He paused. "Though...next time something like this happens, don't come for me."

She frowned at him. "What? Why not?"

"Because I'm trained for these types of situations, and you're not."

"You can't possibly believe that I'm just going to leave you to die," she said, disbelief furrowing her brows. "Because I'm not."

Gabriel didn't mean to smile, and when Moira's frown turned offended, he gave in to the urge to touch her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he quickly apologized, "I'm not mocking you. I'm...pleased. But Moira, you have to understand, knowing that you're as far away from danger in a moment like that is more helpful than you can think. It means I could take calculated risks without worrying about repercussions for your safety."

For a second it looked as if Moira wanted to argue, but then she deflated with a deep sigh. "Okay, but, only if I think I couldn't help you out."

He'll have to work with that. "Alright."

Moira nodded even as her gaze lowered to the floor. Then she groaned and rubbed at her face with the palms of her hands. "Hoooo boy. I feel like I could sleep for a decade."

Gabriel smiled and squeezed her shoulder again before dropping his hand. "It is three in the morning."

"Your buddies sure do know how to make an entrance," she said through her fingers.

"They do," he agreed, "but they'll be a huge help to us."

"Aww, we love you, too, Hawk!" Kid's voice carried from the kitchen below them.

Gabriel wondered if killing Kid would put him back in LT's good graces while Moira snickered into her hand. Then she tilted her head with a quizzical squint of her eyes. "Why does he call you Hawk?"

"Callsign," he answered.

With a quiet ahh, she slowly nodded then, after a pause, flaps a hand towards the guest bedroom. "Well...I'm gonna crash now."

He nodded and gave her a small parting smile and turned on his heel to leave. Gabriel got a few steps in when he heard Moira moving. Just as he started to turn back and ask what was wrong, there was a hand on his arm pulling him around and a pair of warm lips on his cheek.

He blinked into the middle distance, brain rebooting, and when he looked down at Moira, she was biting her lip.

She cleared her throat. "Goodnight, Gabriel."

She didn't give him a chance to reply as she disappeared into the room and behind its door.

Okay...so he probably deserved that for earlier.

It's always the small things.

He shook his head and continued on his way, putting his breathing exercises to use to calm his racing heart.

"Girlfriend all properly tucked in?" Kid asked, splayed across the couch of the basement office, a face-splitting grin on his smug face.

Cowboy was on the swivel chair turned away from the monitors.

Gabriel shoved Kid's legs off the couch and drops into the freed space with a sigh. "She's not my girlfriend."

"The look you give each other says differently," Kid teased in a sing-song voice, and Gabriel slanted a warning glare at him. "Okay then, if that's the case, can I woo her myself?"

He said nothing.

Kid leaned back and raised both of his hands in surrender. "Got the message loud and clear."

"If you're done, Arthur," Cowboy said, prompting Kid to gag at the mention of his real name, "we're actually here for a reason."

Kid aimed a middle finger at Cowboy while his free hand dug into one of his hip pouches and pulled out a small USB, black and inconspicuous, and tossed it to Gabriel.

He snatched it out of the air and Cowboy said, "That's everything our IT guys could find on your case from the CIA servers. It's damning stuff, Hawk. Whoever did this has a real hard-on for you."

"What did you tell the IT guys?" he asked, studying the small device in the palm of his hand.

"That we're hunting you down ourselves," Kid answered with a shark-like grin. "Cost me a pretty penny, too. They drive a hard bargain. Good thing I'm made of money bags. You're welcome, and you owe me."

Gabriel would be the first to admit that aside from being a damn good sniper, a charmer, and a borderline glutton, he really knew nothing about who Kid was outside of being a SEAL. What the team had speculated was that he came from old money. Gabriel's personal theory was that Kid's some politician's bastard son. Whatever the case may be, Leon wouldn't tell them, Kid had never offered to share, and the team had stopped questioning where Kid got his Benjamins from.

Gabriel checked the time and stood up. "Let's see what they have then."

What they have was, as Cowboy had said, damning.

The sun was starting to peek over the horizon by the time Gabriel finished going through every piece of "evidence" on the USB. Kid had conked out on the couch around the two-hour mark, and Cowboy followed him soon after on the floor, arms pillowed behind his head.

Gabriel rubbed a hand down his face and scratched at the stubble around his jaw.

"Well, shit," he mumbled to himself.

"That doesn't sound good," Cowboy drawled, his Texan accent stronger than usual.

"Off-shore bank accounts, millions of dollars, all in my name and all pointing back to me..."

There were grunts behind him before Cowboy stepped up behind the swivel chair and looked at the monitors he's been studying. "You do some pretty shady stuff for the CIA, Hawk...this intel in the wrong hands...well, look where it got you."

Gabriel clenched his jaw. The team had never been keen on him working with the CIA. Hell, they were downright hostile when he was first approached. When he accepted, it took a while for the team to warm up to the idea. These days they were about as warm as the Arctic was in summer. Gabriel never took it personally because for all the CIA's talk of doing good, he didn't trust them either.

The only reason he accepted was that he saw it as a way to help people beyond what the military allowed them to. If that meant slumming it with the "bad guys," climbing the ranks of drug cartels, and killing in cold blood, well, Gabriel had always had a skewered sense of justice. More skewered than anyone on his team, he would say. It made even his CIA handler a bit queasy. In the end, however, his work made the world a better place. Or at least, that was what he told himself.

Still, he really did not need this shit from Cowboy. "What does Sloan think of this?"

"On the books, he's determined to bring you in and pay for your crimes," Cowboy answered after a beat.

"And off?"

"Off the books, he's determined to bring you in and help you from the inside. That handler of yours is too straight-laced—trusts the system too much. The CIA is the last place I thought I'd ever find a guy like that."

Gabriel tipped his head to the side. "He is surprisingly naïve."

Silence followed for a few seconds, only filled with Kid's obnoxious snoring before Cowboy asked, "What's your plan, Gabe?"

His hand twitched. It was both a good and a bad sign when someone on the team used a given name, and you never know which one it was. Dammit. "I don't know, Lance..." he took a deep breath, leaned back in the chair, and released it. "I really don't know."

Kid's snoring stopped abruptly before he said, "Well, it's a good thing you have us at your back, huh?"

Gabriel met Cowboy's gaze before they both turned around to face Kid. The sniper had taken off his vest and boots earlier before falling asleep so he was lounging as comfortably as he could in a pair of tactical pants and a black shirt.

"I take it you have a plan then?" Gabriel quirked a brow at him.

Kid sat up, stretched for a couple of seconds, then leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees to clasped his hands together. Sharp blue eyes cut to him with a seriousness Gabriel had only ever seen when the other man was looking down a sight at his target. "You're not going to like it."

Gabriel hadn't liked a lot of things leading up to this point.

"I was thinking of a way to draw out whoever framed you," Kid went on, "and in the middle of this dream I had about ravishing a really hot brunette just now, it hit me! We could use your girl as bait!"

He was right, Gabriel didn't like it.

"You know that makes no sense, right?" Cowboy crossed his arms across his chest. Gabriel was tempted to bump fists with Cowboy until he said, "Moira literally has nothing she could use as leverage right now to draw anyone out. She'd be useless as bait."

"We are not using her as bait," Gabriel growled, fists clenching around the armrests of the chair.

"Hear me out." Kid held out his hands.

Gabriel really didn't want to, but he sat and listened like a good soldier, and by the end of it he disliked the plan even more. Hated it, even.

"You're okay with this?" He pinned Cowboy with a glare.

Cowboy didn't meet his gaze as he ran a hand across his jaw and said, "It's a good plan, Hawk. Probably our best bet."

"I don't care if it's the perfect plan to ever come into fruition. Moira isn't going to be bait!" The swivel chair crashed into the desk with a violent rattle as he stood up.

There was a brief flash of shock across Kid's face before he schooled it into a blank stare. Cowboy was watching him intently. He cursed under his breath and tried not to stomp as he climbed back up the stairs. At the top, he came to an abrupt halt when he found Moira standing frozen in the kitchen, eyes wide, still in her pajamas and clutching a glass of water.

Something told him she heard his little outburst. His blood was still boiling from it, so he turned and made his way out of the house and down to the docks.

He refused to let Moira be bait, no matter what. He promised to keep her safe, not voluntarily throw her out of the frying pan and into the fire.

He reached the end of the dock and anchored his hands at his waist, took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds before letting it out harshly, his breath coming out as mist in the morning air.

His brain went over Kid's plan once again.

It was perfect.

They would be able to take down two birds with one stone.

"Fuck."